Our time in Manitoba was primarily for visiting family. Our drive from Saskatoon brought us through vast fields as far as the eye could seen, some planted, many not yet as it has been a very cool wet spring.
By mid afternoon we had arrived in Carberry MB, a matchbox-sized town just off the Trans Canada known for its potato farming. The town has been home to some of my family for a couple of generations now but sadly is the kind of Canadian town that is populated by seniors and kids who are just waiting to leave.
We spent a wonderful evening with my cousin and her husband, catching up on family gossip, commiserating on various infirmities of the old age variety and sharing old times. My cousin, the lovely generous person she us, sent us on our way the next morning with packages of frozen perogies and venison sausages (that her husband hunted last fall). We hugged and said our goodbyes, promising that our next visit would be longer and come sooner.
We visited more cousins in Winnipeg the following couple days and spent several hours at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The museum is located at The Forks, the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, and is a must see for any visitor to the city. The Gehry-esque design of the building was the architectural brainchild of Antoine Predock. Inside, the exhibits are brilliantly interactive and cover a full range of human rights history including Residential Schools, the Holocaust, wartime internment camps, the Winnipeg general strike, slavery in Canada and fight for women’s rights. The exhibits are presented in a way that’s accessible to all ages. There’s even an exhibit on how young people can engage in civil society.
Our last night in Winnipeg, the family dined at an excellent Argentinian restaurant downtown. We woke early the next morning driving into the sunrise and within a couple of hours leaving the Prairies behind. Once in Ontario we travelled south through the Lake of the Woods, bought provisions in the tiny town of Atikokan, and set up camp at Kakabeka Falls. Back in the boreal forest we had to adjust to the presence of mosquitoes, something that was luxuriously absent for the previous month of our trip.
Our final night we spent at Pancake Bay, north of Sault Ste. Marie. We love the Lake Superior shores, having fond memories of two covid summer escapes here, and were glad to be back. And we had a fine meal of venison sausage cooked on the open fire!
sedativegunk 